


because we are fools

by queerofcups



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, The Amazing Book Is Not on Fire, The Amazing Tour Is Not on Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 04:17:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9303794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofcups/pseuds/queerofcups
Summary: He realizes it calmly at first, and then suddenly with more clarity. He’s in love with Phil.But he absolutely cannotbe in love with Phil.





	1. i thought that i was dreamin'

**Author's Note:**

> what even is a plot really?  
> Unbeta'd and wow do I love past tense. 
> 
> A lil playlist, if you're wondering what headspace I was in while writing this.
> 
> Denitia and Sene - because we are fools.  
> Iron & Wine - This Must Be the Place  
> Dua Lipa - Thinking 'Bout You  
> Childish Gambino - Terrifed (Dan approved ;))  
> The Front Bottoms - Peach
> 
> This is fiction, y'all.  
> If you're Dan or Phil, stop it, go away.

_yeah, i’ll see u saturday_

Dan sends the text and puts his phone down on the bed, flopping onto his back to look at the dark ceiling of his room. Phil was doing his best to pull Dan back into their ongoing argument over whether or not Birdo would make an objectively good Pokémon.  He’d love to spend the rest of the night enumerating to Phil the qualities that would put Birdo on par with Mew-Two, but he’s got class in the morning and a study group before he can head over to Phil’s place.

It’s a pain in the ass, having to go to bed before he wants and honestly, he wishes he could just move in with Phil. It’s so easy to imagine. He’d only have to be on campus long enough to take class and then he could go back to this awesome, warm place filled with his and Phil’s stuff. It’d be home and it’d be theirs. Fondness curls up in his chest, warm and heavy, as it does when he thinks of Phil.

He examines the feelings, turning it this way and that in his head while staring at the part of his dorm room wall that hadn’t been covered in art from viewers yet. He lets the thought settle on him like a blanket in the too warm room. He realizes, in that moment, he’s in love with Phil. 

He realizes it calmly at first, and then suddenly with more clarity. He’s in love with Phil.

But he absolutely can _not_ be in love with Phil.

He’s got uni (which is starting to get really stressful), the Youtube thing is starting to really take off, he hasn’t got another best friend to replace Phil with, and it would really fuck up the whole friends with benefits things they’ve got going.

“This feels like a problem for future Dan,” he says out loud, then looks guiltily at the thin wall he shares with his neighbor. He gets on his side with a determined little twist. “We’re just gonna repress the _fuck_ out of that one, Dan.”

\--

So he does. Honestly, he does a really great job. It’s only weird for the first hour of his visit to Phil’s apartment. He’s a little stiff when they hug, which gets him a concerned look from Phil and he sits a little further away, suddenly aware that he gets _butterflies_ when their thighs touch, what even is that. Dan catches himself looking at Phil a little too long, noticing new shit like the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs, or the surprisingly delicate way he folds himself up on the couch. Dan manages to look away every time Phil glances back at him, though. He picks at a hole developing in his skinny jeans and frets.

“Are you okay?” Phil asks. Dan nods, turning the question over in his head.  Had Phil’s voice always been so deep and nice? It sounds the same as it always had in the years they’ve known each other, but maybe Dan’s just now realizing how much he likes it.

This goes on for a while, Phil acting totally normal and Dan flinching away, making himself small and far away. But after Dan catches Phil pull back from bopping Dan on the head between rounds of their game, he realizes that he needs to get his shit together.

He makes a point to tackle Phil into the carpet when Phil miraculously manages to beat him at Mario Kart for once.

“Hey!” Phil says, grinning up at him. Dan feels his chest tighten and thinks decisively ‘ _none of that’_.

“Behold, world!” He says, sitting up. “Less Sucky, But Still Not All That AmazingPhil!”

Phil squawks with indignation, sitting up and toppling Dan off. There’s no way Dan was giving this up, not for something as unsure and annoying as _love_.

\--

“D’you want a Ribena?” Phil asks, getting up from the couch. They’re working on the book, which is basically all they do at the moment.

“Nah,” Dan says, scrolling through shots. They’re doing a page of their feet next to each other: Dan in some of his many pairs of black shoes, Phil in colorful ones. There are different options. Some of them wearing their shoes, pale calves rising up out of them to the knee, or to the ankle. There were even a few where they switch shoes, Dan shoved into shoes half a size too small. Dan is leaning towards the ones with just the shoes though, their differences standing between them in a stark, but comforting way.

Dan thinks idly that this picture would make a cute engagement announcement. Phil is taking forever in the kitchen, so he opens a new project in photoshop and copies one of his favorite versions of the photo. He messes around with texts, fonts and filters until he’s made a passable “we’re engaged!” card. He’s also pretty sure Phil is eating something, probably of his, judging by the length of his absence.

He’s pretty impressed with himself, looking at the draft. It’s not bad, the picture’s colors turned up til they’re a little brash and the font appropriately casual. “Surprise!” it says, “We’re Engaged!”

Dan snickers to himself, imaging what would happen if the fandom got a hold of such a thing. Then he frowns. This sort of thing should be important, not just a joke to get people laughing and tweeting at them. Phil deserves some seriousness and formality, to change his stance on marriage just for Dan. Phil deserves whatever he wants.

“Shit,” Dan whispers to himself, staring at the fucking _engagement announcement_ he’s made on a whim. Phil deserves whatever he wants, but Dan only wants Phil.

“Holy fucking shit,” he breaths again. A familiar feeling wells up in him, tendrils of warmth and tenderness in his chest. He thinks about Phil: the open excitement on his face when Dan first suggested the book idea to him, the light in his eyes when he’s laughing at some dumb shit Dan’s said. He thinks of quiet moments in the morning, before they have to start working, sitting on the couch with Phil eating breakfast, impossible to improve upon.

Dan looks up at the sound of socked feet padding across the floor. Phil has a marshmallow in his mouth and two glasses of Ribena. Dan is hopelessly, irrepressively, _still_ in love with him.

“Motherfuck,” he says, faintly, saving the engagement announcement as _project24._

“What’s up?” Phil asks, settling next to him and handing Dan his drink.

“Nothing!” Dan says brightly, “Nothing at all.” He huffs a nervous laugh.

Phil hums, putting down his drink and picking up his computer. “You’re weird.”

“Your mum is weird,” Dan says automatically. “Sorry, Kath.”

Phil rolls his eyes and turns his computer to Dan. He’s got one of the pictures of the empty shoes set open. “So, what if we, like, did a full page of each of us.”

Honestly, Dan thinks it’s wasteful, and he says so, starting a debate with Phil and ignoring the warmth of a different type of fondness spreading through him.

 

Later, a little after midnight, Dan sits in his bed. He’d left Phil a few minutes ago, after a final round of challenging each other to see who could write the most words in five minutes. He has every intention of turning in early, and told Phil so, shutting his door behind him. Now, though, he sits cross-legged on his bed, thinking about the photo he’d made and his repression years ago in his prison cell of a dorm room.

“Who the fuck even represses that hard,” he murmurs to himself. Didn’t anyone notice? How could you not notice? How could this big, warm, almost-familiar feeling in Dan’s chest not also be all over his face.

He pauses in his thoughts, thinking about the fandom. How do you not notice you’re still in love with thousands of people telling you you’re in love every day?

He pulls his laptop closer. Opening up an incognito window, he pulls up tumblr, twitter and youtube, typing Phan into each of their search bars. They’d released a joint video earlier in the week, so tumblr and twitter are still awash in gifs and commentary from the video. He clicks the first result on the Phan youtube search. He’s familiar with the videos their audience makes, honestly finds them pretty impressive, but hasn’t spent much time watching the shipping ones.

He clicks from the first result through a few more, sometimes watching, sometimes skimming the comments. He didn’t really think most of their examples of “proof” were all that convincing, but a couple of instances kept showing up in videos that made him a little nervous. The next time he’s seen the same clip, he’s pretty sure it’s from a video from the gaming channel, its emblazoned with HEART EYES HOWELL in comic sans.

Frowning, he types ‘hearteyes howell’ into the browser and clicks the first video.

It’s a shipping video like the others, except its only clips of him looking at Phil. Some are totally normal, just how it looks when Dan turns to listen to Phil talk about something. Every few clips, though, he’ll laugh, or smile or, dear god, look down at Phil’s mouth.

It’s a bit like those look-up-and-realize-you’re-naked dreams people have. Dan doesn’t have them about being in school very much. His are usually about doing a liveshow and realizing he’s forgotten a shirt or accidentally said someone’s personal information with no way to bleep it. He feels exposed, caught out and a little embarrassed. Somehow, a bunch of strangers on the internet have noticed that he’s deeply in love with his best friend and he’s managed to _forget_.

Dan closes the computer and lays back on his bed. There’s no way Phil doesn’t know. If complete strangers can figure out his feelings, there’s no way Phil hasn’t.

Dan pulls a pillow over and rolls onto his stomach, screaming into it. How many years was Phil going to go on, pretending not to notice as Dan mooned over him and accidentally eye-fucks him while they’re playing fucking _Bishi Bashi_.

He can’t even smother himself, Dan thinks, hysterically. Because if he dies, Phil will have to open all his files to delete the porn and weird photo manips before his parents can get it and then he’ll see the fucking engagement card and he’ll be like ‘wow, that Dan’s pretty pathetic, thinking about marrying me but can’t even tell me he’s in love’.

“I have to tell him,” Dan mumbles into the pillow. He drags his head up, and looks to their shared wall. It’s horrifying, but Dan has a strong sense of ethics that certainly includes being honest with your best friend. And he has to be honest now, before the temptation to repress it for another five to ten years gets too strong.

He sits up, takes a few quick fortifying breaths and stands. He paces a few times, pushing his hair up into the stress quiff, then leaves his room. He glances into Phil’s room, and starts a little, surprised to see Phil laying on the bed reading. Honestly, he was hoping for the length of the hall to build his confidence, but this will do.

Phil looks up at him and puts his book down. “Oh, stress quiff. What’s up?”

Dan walks toward the bed, pulling the arms of his jumper down over his fingers. He stops when he’s close enough that Phil has to look up at him. Phil visibly pauses, looking over Dan.

Dan’s wearing the same hoodie and pajama pants he was wearing when he left Phil in the lounge a few minutes ago, but Phil must see something different because he goes “Oh,” again, but it’s in his deeper, sexy voice instead. “Stress relief?”

They’ve lapsed in and out of fucking over the years, coming together and drifting apart as flings and projects came and went. It’s as comfortable as any other part of their relationship, awkwardness rubbed off by years of friendship. They’d mostly been in an off period before the book started, but it turns out coming your brains out was, in fact, quality stress relief.

It’d be nothing for Dan to grin and shrug and make Phil make room for him on the bed. Phil was and is such a formative part of Dan’s sexual history and he still thrills at the sight of all of Phil’s pale skin stretched out before him, dotted and smelling like home.

“How the fuck did you not notice?” Dan mumbles to himself, looking down at Phil. He’s spent the last significant chunk of his life mooning over this man and missing it.

“Huh?” Phil asks, pulling his legs up til he’s sitting cross-legged, making room for Dan. “What didn’t I notice?”

“Not you,” Dan says, sitting down. “I’m not here for stress relief. I need to talk to you. You know- You know I respect you Phil. You’re so smart and creative and humble. You’re really generous, adorable, and I often like your socks and you’re really, really important to me.” It’s too much, he’s never genuinely nice to Phil for so long. But he’s nervous and the words keep coming. Oh god, he’s gonna call Phil dreamy any second.

Phil furrows his brow. “Okay…? Are you ok, Dan? I was joking about the shoe thing earlier, we can do the single page spread, I don’t mind all that much.”

Dan waves a head, “The two page spread looks much better, but no, not that. I. Phil. It has come to my attention that I’m in love with you.” He bites at his bottom lip. That was dumb. It sounds like someone sent him a form email, not like he’s done the digital equivalent of writing “Mr. Dan Lester” on a notebook

“Oh,” Phil says softly, eyes wide. He leans back into his headboard, the wicker creaking a little.

“I know, I know,” Dan powers on. “It’s extremely ill-timed and one sided. I’ve already thought about it and it’s just not going to work. I’m going to work on getting a handle on it, and we can go on as we have been. This won’t affect our friendship, or business. Honesty is just very important to me, as you know. Because you’re my best friend. And that’s all.”

Phil opens his mouth to speak, but Dan stands up, making a quick retreat to the door. “Good talk. We can talk about anything you can do to help later. We might have to hold off on the banging for now. We can probably still make out, though. Goodnight, now.”

Dan closes Phil’s door behind him, and then his own door once he gets to his room. His phone’s screen is lit up with a new message, a string of question marks from Phil. He dutifully taps ‘good night phil’ back and turns his phone on do not disturb.

He finally gets under the covers and flips onto his back, staring at his ceiling. It’s all fine. Dan, apparently, has the willpower to repress being in love with his best friend. He definitely has enough willpower to live with being in love with Phil.

He grabs his phone one more time, opening up his chat with Louise.

_made the mistake of my life, tea tomorrow?_

Louise texts back almost immediately, _Did you get someone pregnant???_

Dan rolls his eyes. _no mom. i’m pregnant with feelings. Tea?_

_Noon?_

_fine. thnx_

Louise sends back a string of upside down smileys and a blue heart.

 

 

Dan wakes to his alarm and a text from Phil.

_gone to dentist. talk later?_

Dan shakes his head. _gonna be at lou’s. nothing to talk about. have fun getting drilled, winky face._

It’s the kind of thing Dan would say under normal circumstances. He feels a flash of embarrassment but pushes through it. No way they’re gonna get to the other side of this realization if he doesn’t act normal.

 _we need milk, pick some up._ he adds. There. Nothing flirty about milk. Nothing to worry about.

He rolls out of bed and putters around his room, picking out some clothes to put on. He grimaces when he realizes a few of the clothes he’s picked up off the floor are definitely Phil’s, probably laundry Dan couldn’t be bothered to return to him. He throws the socks and shirts onto his bed, making a mental note to return them to Phil when they were both at the apartment. Because he’s definitely not avoiding Phil. Because that would be the opposite of acting normally. He whines quietly and goes to the bathroom to shower and brush his teeth and not think about his fucking _feelings_.

 

Louise is a lovely human. She’s warm and confident and the same sort of weirdly excitable awkward human he is. Outside of Phil and PJ, she’s probably his closest youtuber friend, and there were tons of reasons to love her. Her restraint, however, isn’t one of them.

“Did you know I was in love with Phil?” he asks before even properly getting his coat off.

Her face does a number of complicated things before settling on annoyed. “Did you not? Damnit. I owe Zoe.”

Dan stares at her. “You’re making bets about me?”

Louise waves a hand. “Small ones. What year you two would get married, when you’d come out to your viewers. Little things. What brought this up? You didn’t know?”

Dan follows Louise into her kitchen, watching her fill her kettle. “Are you feeding me actual tea and biscuits?”

“There’s take out on the way.” Louise says, sitting at her kitchen table. “Don’t change the subject. How’d you figure it out?”

Dan sits down across from her. “I made an engagement announcement.”

Louise’s eyes bulge in surprise. “Oh! You’ve gotten much farther than I’d expected, why didn’t you tell any of us? Oh, when’s the wedding? I hope you haven’t planned it around any of the big things like Vidcon. We’ll make time, Dan.”

Dan shakes his head, picking at the pale green table cloth. “No one’s getting married. I’m just working on getting over it. I figured it out a long time ago and just kind of…made myself forget? Except I guess I didn’t do that great of a job since apparently _everyone_ but me and Phil knows.”

Louise frowns, then shakes her head. “You haven’t told Phil? When did you figure it out?”

Dan huffs a laugh, dropping his head onto the table. “I told him last night. I figured it out yesterday morning? I couldn’t lie to him, Louise, not even by omission. I’m trying to act normal, but he would have figured it out.”

Louise comes over to scratch her fingers through his hair, petting him softly. “Oh, love. What’d he say? Did he not take it well?”

Dan sits up, letting Louise’s hand fall to his shoulder. “Didn’t give him a chance to say anything. Just told him I loved him, and that it didn’t mean anything, that I’d keep things normal til I got over it. Ah, it’s all fucked, Louise.” Dan’s definitely not going to cry, because that’d be like admitting how much this has him fucked up. “He’s my best friend,” he says softly, tilting his head back so any accumulating moisture can’t escape his eyeballs.

Louise clucks, “Yes. He’s your _best friend_. Why on earth wouldn’t you think he’d react well? You’ve been living in each other’s pockets all these years.” The kettle whistles and Louise walks over to turn it off, reaching up into her cabinets to pull two mugs out.

“Exactly!” Dan says. “None for me, thanks. Exactly, Lou! It’s been _years_ and he didn’t _notice_. He didn’t say _anything_.”

Louise leans back against the kitchen counter and crosses her arms. “Neither did you.”

“Because I didn’t notice! I’ve only ever had one best friend, and we already have sex. How am I supposed to know what the normal amount of affection is supposed to be?” Dan flails his hands a little and drops his head back on the table, face down.

“You weren’t together but you were having sex?” Louise asks, aghast. Dan looks up quickly, catching her wide-eyed shock.

Dan shrugs. “Don’t be so traditional, Louise. Lots of people do friends with benefits.”

“Yes, Dan I’m aware that—“

“And I didn’t really have time at uni to pull—“

“You’ve been having sex since you were in _university_?”

Dan blanches. Louise’s color is high, her cheeks pink and her eyes even wider.

“Daniel Howell. You’ve been having sex with Phil for _four years_?” Louise’s voice is quite loud, really. He’s mostly always loved that when he’s around her he’s not the only one who’s occasionally quite loud. He appreciates it less in this moment.

“Give or take, yes. We assumed you all knew. What with the jokes and whatnot? Oh god you didn’t know. Christ, Phil probably doesn’t want people know.” There’s a knock on the door. “Takeout! I will. Go get that. And bring it back. Here. With you. And your new knowledge.” He scurries out of the kitchen, eternally grateful for the tak- out guy’s timing.

Dan takes the sushi from the delivery guy, taking the time to tip and thank him. He glances at the kitchen, grimaces and turns towards Louise’s lounge to set up food.

“Lou,” he calls after a few minutes, sitting at her coffee table. “Food’s ready.”

Louise looks much calmer when she comes out of the kitchen. She doesn’t say anything as she settles at the table across from him and picks up her chopsticks to unwrap. Dan has known her for too long to think that this silence will last.

“Ok,” she says finally, grabbing a piece of mackarel nigiri. “So, we’re going to put aside my outrage that you and Phil have been having sex secretly for _four years_.”

“Give or take,” Dan mumbles through a mouth full of rice and fish.

Louise closes her eyes tightly for a moment then shakes her head, a few strands a pink hair falling from her bun. “No, Dan. We’re going with four years. Because if we extended any further, we’d have to think about how old you were, and how old Phil was and we’re not going to do that, ok?”

Dan shrugs, “I was legal, and well up for it.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Louise says, “You two have been having sex for years. The whole time? Because both of you have dated…”

“Nah,” Dan says, pushing around a bit of wasabi. He’s been off it since that one Truth or Dare video, but he appreciates the texture. “On and off. Didn’t always want it. Or someone was dating. Honestly, we just got back into a regular thing lately.”

Dan’s not going to think about how good the regular thing is, how surprised he was that being with Phil was still so good after almost a year of not thinking of him in that way. But, he supposes, he’s slept with Phil more than any other human, so it makes sense that he’d like the things he and Phil got up to.

Louise hums and eats a few more pieces of sushi. “How do you know when the other wants to start up again?”

Dan shrugs. He hasn’t really come to Louise to talk about his sex life. It was his heart that has the issue, not his dick. “One of us asks? Or we like…show each other…things…we’ve found online.” Dan’s definitely bright red right now and Louise’s cheeks are looking a little pink.

 She waves a hand. “Ok, ok, but why is it okay for you two to be having sex for years, but you can’t be in love with him?”

Dan shrugs. “It just doesn’t work like that, y’know? Oh, I stalked you on the internet and now we’re going to be together forever. Fairytale shit like that doesn’t happen in real life.”

Louise sighs, shaking her head. “I don’t know, Dan. Maybe it could happen like that, this one time? At least keep talking to him about it. Maybe get his perspective.”

Keep talking about it. Dan nods. Maybe the problem is he’s been trying to get over it by repressing his feelings, when that’s clearly only a temporary fix. He has to normalize it, so it can stop being weird, and eventually go away. “Louise, you’re a genius. I’ll definitely keep talking to him about it.”

Louise looks surprised that he’s so willingly taken her advice. “Good, Dan. I’m glad. And I’m sure you two will work everything out.”

Dan nods, and they sit in silence for a minute, eating more.

“So,” Louise says, and Dan immediately recognizes the glint in her eye. “You and Phil, huh? It must be good, huh? To still be doing it years down the line.”

Dan laughs, blushing a little but nodding. “I got kinda lucky. Could you imagine that conversation? Hey Phil, I know you’re my best friend and you were my first or whatever but wow not really into the D. Louise?”

Louise had squeaked a little and is now looking at him oddly. “Phil was your first?”

“First guy,” Dan says defensively. “I’d been in a long relationship before that, y’know.”

“First guy,” Louise repeats dutifully. “Yeah, Dan. I think you’ll be ok.”

\--

Phil is back by the time Dan gets home, pajamas and glasses firmly in place. He’s got a bit of a stress quiff himself, which makes sense as he seems to be working on the book, judging from the frown he’s giving his computer. His face smooths out some when he looks at Dan, and Dan’s heart thumps a little. Definitely still in love then.

“How was Louise?” Phil asks, watching Dan cross the lounge to flop onto the couch and into his sofa crease.

“Lovely as ever,” Dan says, running a hand through his hair. “We talked about the me being in love with you thing. She had some useful things to say.”

“Right,” Phil says. Dan feels Phil turn to look at him and tilts his head back, closing his eyes. Talking about it is new, he’s still allowed some evasive tacticts. “About that, Dan.”

Dan sighs loudly, “She says we ought to keep lines of communication open. Not let things get awkward and silent.”

“Good!” Phil says and Dan turns to look at him. He’s smiling, eyes bright, expression soft. Phil has been smiling at him for more than half a decade now and it still stops Dan in his tracks sometime.

“It’s how I’ll get over it,” Dan says firmly. “And we can move on with our lives.”

“…Over it.” Phil says.

Dan nods and stretches his arms out in front of him, stretching the tension out his hands, fighting the desire to fidget. “Yeah, it’s a bad one, isn’t it? Falling in love with your best friend and business partner. Just asking for disaster.”

“Yeah.” Phil says, laughing a little. “Disaster. If that’s what you want.”

Dan doesn’t look at him. He wouldn’t admit out loud to anyone. Not Louise, not even PJ. But he knows there’s a tiny part of him waiting for the opposite, for Phil to say he isn’t a disaster waiting to happen and to declare his love back. It doesn’t happen though.

Dan nods and stands, looking back at Phil.  “I’m gonna go grab my stuff and we can work on book stuff, yeah? The end is in sight, Philly!”

“’Course!” Phil says, turning back to his computer. “See you in a bit.”

Dan walks down the hall, pulling out his phone.

 _we’re talking about it_ , he texts Louise. He gets a string of emojis back a mix of smiley faces, hearts and a few aubergine. Dan snorts, laughing a little and goes to get changed and grab his laptop.

 

And it’s fine.

It _is_.


	2. love and love and nothing else

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're following along, you can add to the playlist:  
> Chairlift - Get Real  
> Shura - What's It Gonna Be
> 
> i bumped the rating up because idk, things might be happening soon? Just in case!

Except sometimes.

Sometimes he’s really tired and Phil will cook his favorite food. And he’ll set it down with grin and “Well, you’re in love with me. It’s the least I can do.”

And sometimes, during rehearsals for the tour, Phil will forget to walk and their choreographer person will ask how Dan deals with him and Phil laughs and says, “You can’t ask Dan. He’s emotionally compromised.”

And sometimes, some rare occasion, Phil wins a round of Smash Bros by pure _luck_ and Dan’s going in for a bit of a choke and Phil, laughing and flailing, will say, “No! You can’t! I’m the love of your life!”

And that’s exactly what Dan wants really. For this to be something they could joke about. It’s funny and classic Dan and it’s _true_. It’s even funny to Dan. It just makes him feel weird, too. Like maybe Phil thinks he was joking. He isn’t joking and judging from some of his reactions lately, he isn’t getting over it.

He and Phil have always been touchy, happy to shove and tackle, but just as happy to hug and ruffle hair. Lately, though, even that’s getting fraught.

It’s fine when Dan’s doing the touching, nudging Phil out of the way with a cheeky hip bump or fixing Phil’s weird hair loops. It’s different when Phil’s grabbing him by the hips to put him in the right place for a selfie or resting his hand on Dan’s back. Dan hasn’t been this aware of his body since his last growth spurt when all his clothes stopped fitting the same way and he found himself slightly taller than Phil. Every time Phil touches him, Dan bounces between wanting to swat him away and wanting to lean closer, and there’s always something fucking _fluttering_ , be it his heart or his stomach. It’s exhausting, frankly.

“And it makes sex so _weird_ ,” he tells Louise. She’s apparently gotten over whatever hang ups she might have had about Dan’s age when he and Phil had started banging because she just tilts her head.

“It’s like,” Dan makes grabby motions with his hands. “He always starts it? Because I’m afraid if I do it’ll be like, hey, wanna make _love_. But even when he start it, I’m like, oh god, it will literally never feel this good with anyone else ever again. It feels like coming home. How the _fuck_ does another person feel like coming home? We’re already at home! I don’t care what they say, Lou, a blowjob is not a blowjob, no matter what.”

Louise titters a little bit and asks, teasing, “Is a blowjob with love better?”

“Yes!” Dan says, flopping back onto the sofa and dragging over a pillow to cover his face with. “It _is_. And I’m fully aware I sound like a goddamn romance novel.”

He takes the pillow down and looks at one of the many copies of _TABINOF_ that are lying around their house these days. It was glossy and full of the version of their lives they gave to their audience. Their audience who can probably see all the feelings Dan is having in every video he posts.

“And now you’re going on a world tour,” Louise says, picking up the book. “Which is still amazing, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Dan says. “Now we’re going on tour. Us, and like 50 new people to figure it out. Christ, d’you think Martyn knows?”

“I’m not sure you know, Daniel.” Louise says, sarcastic. “And Phil hasn’t changed at all?”

“ _No_ ,” Dan whines, dropping the pillow. “He’s the same way he’s always been. Weird and northern and bossy and car sick-y and perfect or whatever. He keeps calling himself the love of my life. In front of people! We were at the church, once, and he did it in front of Ed like it was nothing! I was afraid he was going to say it on stage!”

Louise sighs. “Dan. Have you considered that Phil might feel the same way about you?”

Dan shakes his head. “Surely he would have said something by now. It’s been months.”

Louise reaches over to rest a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Dan. You know when you get nervous and you start talking quickly and rather loudly?”

“No,” Dan says, fully aware of what she’s talking about it.

Louise continues, “Have you considered that you’re doing that right now?”

Dan scoffs. “I let Phil talk! Phil and I talk all the time. That’s literally the point of telling him, because I knew I couldn’t _not_ tell him.”

Louise rolls her eyes. “Dan, darling. You’re really sort of obtuse sometime.”

“No, Lou, really. I’ve known Phil forever, he would have told me by now. I’m certain of it.” Dan crosses his arms, certain. He would know if Phil reciprocated, wouldn’t he?

 

The first week of America is…weird. In that it’s glorious; Dan loves Phil’s family and weirdly sort of loves Florida. It rains every day, but it’s warm, and the air wraps around them like a blanket. It’s weird and a little suffocating, like the blanket’s not fully dry, but the wet heat still manages to be a novelty. But he’s still waiting for the moment when Phil drops the L bomb in front of the rest of the Lesters and Dan has to explain his intentions towards Phil (which are nonexistent, thanks).

After all these years, Dan still feels a little lingering formality around Phil’s parents, never able to fully relax into himself. Phil knows it, thinks it’s silly but respects it and doesn’t question the way Dan keeps a little distance, not tugging and knocking into Phil the way he normally does.

There’s a moment when they’re both in Phil’s hotel room, getting ready to go minigolfing with the Lesters, when Phil leans against the bathroom door to watch Dan finish straightening his hair. It’s already a lost battle really, the moment they step outside the air-conditioned hotel room his hair will revolt to a riot of waves and curls.

But Dan’s not ready to concede defeat yet, watching himself in the mirror. They’ve been in this position thousands of times, one of them watching the other straighten their hair and elbowing each other out of the way to brush their teeth. It’s weirdly comforting.

Dan flicks his eyes over to Phil’s reflection. “Yeah?”

Phil doesn’t say anything for a long time, his mouth just curled into a smile. Dan shrugs and looks back at his own reflection, pulling the last strands of hair through the straighteners and, satisfied, turning them off. His hair’s getting a little long, will probably need a cut before Playlist and the start of the American leg of the tour.

“Wait a sec,” Phil says. Dan puts the straighteners down and waits, expectantly.

Phil slips behind him, wrapping his arms around Dan’s hips and resting a cheek to his shoulder blade. He’s a little cool from the blasting a/c, and soft, and familiar. He smells like their apartment, just faintly, scent fading with travel and distance. His arms cross over the bottom of Dan’s stomach, pulling them flush together.

It’s not sexual, necessarily, though if they had more time and Phil’s room weren’t sharing a wall with Martyn’s, Dan might turn it that way. Instead, Dan relaxes back into Phil, wrinkling his nose at the tickle of Phil’s hair against his neck.

Honestly, this is probably the thing that Dan misses the most from before this whole love realization. Being able to be quiet and comfortable with Phil and not second guessing why it was so nice.

“Wotcher, mate,” Dan says, softly. “The fans might start to think you like me or something.”

Phil snorts, giving Dan a squeeze before letting go.

 “They certainly think you like me,” he says, wandering out of the bathroom. Dan stares into the bathroom mirror and for once, doesn’t fight the smile that blooms on his face. He shakes his head, a little bashful, and follows Phil.

“What was that?” Dan asks, watching Phil pick up his things. Phil shrugs.

“I miss you, sometimes, when we’re with my family. You get really far away and all,” he waves a hand around his head. “Cerebral. You don’t talk as much.”

“Probably because every third word I say is fuck,” Dan suggests. This might have been an argument under normal circumstances, might have pricked up Dan’s weird insecurities about the Lesters not thinking he’s good enough to be Phil’s best friend— to be _with_ Phil.

Phil shrugs. “I know why. Still miss you, so, a little hug. Hugging never hurt anyone, Daniel.”

Phil’s grinning at him and Dan needs a second away from that smile before he tells Phil something he already knows.

“That you know of,” he says, he says darkly. “I’m gonna head to the lobby, see if there’s a giant potted plant you can smuggle onto the bus.”

They’re seeing their bus for the first time tomorrow, to make sure its good (as if they know anything about the quality of tour buses) before it becomes their home for the next three months.

He slips out of the room before Phil can say anything else and shakes his head. Louise’s words are haunting him a little. He would know if Phil’s feelings had change from friendship to something else. Hell, Phil would tell him, probably more calmly than the mess of a conversation they’d had when Dan told him.

 

The next day they spend most of the day in the hotel, murmuring lines to each other in between texts about their friends making it to Florida for Playlist. It’s their last calm day for a while, and their making use of it, sprawled across Phil’s bed, three laptops, phones, TABINOF and a DS joining them. They’ve got an hour before they need to get dressed to go see the bus and Dan never wants to leave.

“What if,” Dan says through a yawn, “we just didn’t leave?”

Phil glances at him. “Just stay in the hotel? Don’t go on tour?”

Dan nods. “They bring us food, they clean the room. What’s not to love?”

Phil smiles and shakes his head. “About a thousand angry youtube fans demanding their money and time back.”

“Ah, fuck ‘em,” Dan says, rolling til his head is resting on Phil’s boney thigh. “We keep ‘em confused, move rooms every couple days. It’s a foolproof plan.”

“I’ve got proof you’re a fool,” Phil mutters to his computer screen. He still rests a hand on Dan’s head, digging his fingers into Dan’s hair. He tugs a little, absently.

Dan groans a little, and shifts, nudging his shoulders up into Phil’s leg. “Stop that. We have no time.”

“Stop what?” Phil asks, pulling a little harder. Pain prickles along Dan’s scalp. Sex on tour has been a sort of unanswered question that neither of them have addressed. They don’t know what to imagine from a bus, but surely no bus is big enough to afford them any _real_ privacy. Here, at least, they only have to worry about one shared, but thick, hotel room wall.

Dan sits up, preparing to show Phil just what he can do with their limited time, when his phone chirps out Louise’s familiar ring tone.

Phil sighs and waves his hand, gesturing at Dan to pick it up. Dan hesitates a second, weighing a series of “are you dead” texts from Louise against a romp with Phil. The phone keeps trilling and he rolls his eyes, leaning over to pick it up.

“Did your ‘Phil’s about to sully Dan’s virtue’ senses go off, Lou? Cause I gotta tell you, Phil wasn’t this pressed about my age when we started and he’s the one I’m fuc—“

“ _Dan_ ,” Louise hisses. She sounds tinny and far away. Like she’s on speaker phone. She’s _definitely_ on speaker phone.

“I _knew_ it,” a second voice says. Was that fucking Tyler Oakley? Dan feels all the blood leave his face.

“Oh god,” he says, rolling off the bed to pace. “Louise? Was I on speaker phone? Who’s there?”

“Well, Daniel,” Louise says, she’s going for bright and landing somewhere a little shriek-y. “I ran into some of the American youtubers, Tyler, Mamrie and Hannah. I was going to ask if you and Phil wanted to join us to go pick up Joe and Zoe from the airport and get lunch. But since you’re obviously occupied, we’ll just go alone.”

Dan drags a hand through his hair. “Ok. Um. Shit, do I care that they know?” He glances at Phil, who’s nonplussed enough to go back to whatever he was doing on his computer. “Phil! Do we care?”

“Care about what?” Phil asks, looking up and pushing his glasses back onto the bridge of his knows. Dan just wants to crawl back into bed with him, honestly. “Oh no, stress quiff.”

“That they _know_ ,” Dan says, gesturing to the phone with his other hand. “Fuck the stress quiff.”

“That we have sex?” Phil shrugs. “I thought they all already knew. Also, you remember that time you accidentally got jizz _everywhere_ and we fell asleep and my hair was all weird in the morning? I don’t think I should fuck the stress quiff, Dan.”

“Wow, so they probably also hear that,” Dan says, distressed. “They know we’re fucking and that you’re a fucking oddball.”

“We knew that already,” Louise’s tiny voice says from the phone. “Not the sex thing. The other thing.”

Dan takes a deep breath and focuses on the phone. “Louise. You’re allowed to talk about the sex thing but _just_ with the people you’re with right now. I don’t want this all over youtube. And don’t talk about the _other_ thing at all.”

“The jizz in the hair thing?” Louise asks

Dan closes his eyes. “Well, it’s too late if I was talking about that. No. The,” he lowers his voice. “the love thing.”

“Dan,” Louise says very seriously. “I would never.”

“You literally just shouted about the jizz hair thing!” Dan is aware that he might be squealing. “Good _bye_ , Louise. I’ll see you later.”

Phil looks up from his computer. “You ok?”

Dan makes a distressed noise and climbs back into bed, “All of our friends slash co-workers are now talking about our sex life so no, not actually.”

“I think that’s pretty normal actually,” Phil muses. “I’m about the age where people are starting talking about marriage and babies, which is really just a way of asking if you’re having sex and if a traditional kind or not.”

“ _Phil_ ,” Dan says, laying so his head is fully in Phil’s lap, nudging the laptop away. “Not the time. They _know_.”

“Sure,” Phil says, looking down at Dan. “I thought they already knew.”

“That’s what I said when I told Louise!” Dan says, “But they didn’t and I got comfortable and now they know and Tyler’s literally never gonna let me hear the end of it.”

“Hmm,” Phil says. “Well now they know. And we officially have to start getting dressed.”

“What?” Dan says, being displaced as Phil crawls out of the bed. “I thought we had an hour!”

Phil gives him an unimpressed look. “We did before. Except now I have extra things to take care of in the shower,” Dan snorts. “And you need to have a proper freak out. So, I’m going to shower and you’re gonna freak out because people know you have sex with me.”

“Oh! Phil, no, that’s not—” Phil’s closes the bathroom door behind him before Dan can finish the sentence. He’d said it in his normal, upbeat tone, but Dan could still hear the upset in the way Phil phrased the sentence.

“Fuck,” Dan says softly to himself, staring at the closed bathroom door. “Fuckity fuck fuck.”

 

The first year or so of their friendship, Dan had a lot of trouble telling when Phil was upset with him. He knew when he’d obviously done something Phil would be upset about. Phil would frown or, on a rare occasion, yell at him. But when Phil was upset by something Dan’d done and not realized Phil wouldn’t like, it could be days, or even weeks, before Dan figured out that Phil was miffed with him. When he wanted to be, Phil could be aloof, perfectly polite but perfectly formal and every fake smile and the distance between them felt like hot ice to Dan.

Now, riding in an Uber across to the bus lot with Martyn and Phil, he can feel the distance between them. Martyn had given Dan a concerned look when they’d first made it to the lobby, obviously familiar with this particular brand of Phil’s anger. Now, he’s keeping up friendly banter with the driver, occasionally drawing Phil in, leaving Dan to simmer in silence, desperately trying to figure out how to apologize to Phil.

He doesn’t even particularly get why Phil is upset. Like, sure, he can understand how it might seem like his freak out _might_ seem like he’s embarrassed or ashamed of Phil. But also, people talk! And how long can it be, really, before ‘Dan and Phil are friends with benefits’ gets turned into ‘Dan and Phil are together! We knew it!!!’. Dan has played many games of telephone in his life. The answer is not long.

He sighs and opens up twitter, scrolling through his feed. At least it hasn’t hit the internet yet.

“Okay!” Martyn says as they pull up to a lot of tour buses. Ours is that one.” He points to one of buses, larger than a regular passenger bus but not the largest one on the property, “They’re waiting for us, so it should be open. Do you guys want to look at it while I go talk to the front office?”

They crawl out of the car, splitting off from Martyn to go to the bus. They walk next to each other in silence, too much distance between them to bump arms. Phil hasn’t said anything since he’d responded at the driver’s departing goodbye.

“Listen,” Dan says as Phil reaches for the handle to open the bus door. “I know you’re angry at me, but we’re about to step onto our _tour bus_ for our _American tour_ which is fucking _mental_. Can we just, like, pause argument long enough to enjoy how ridiculous our lives are?”

Phil lets go of the door to turn to Dan. He looks at him for a long moment before rolling his eyes then smiling. “Fine. For the duration of the tour of the bus.”

“Deal,” Dan says quickly, then gestures at the door. “Go on, then.”

Phil opens the bus and steps up onto it.

Dan’s spent a lot of time watching interviews with touring bands as a teen (and, admittedly, reading some fanfiction about those bands), so the set up isn’t exactly unfamiliar. A tiny lounge, a tiny bathroom, too small bunks and—

“Huh,” Dan says as Phil opens the door farthest from the bus entrance. “Didn’t we ask for two beds?”

Phil walks into to the master bedroom. “Must not have had one available. Wish Martyn had’ve told us.”

Dan walks in. The room is smallish, but still bigger than everywhere else on the bus. There’s enough space for some clothes and most importantly, it has a door that closes.

“We’ve shared smaller,” Phil says, amused. Dan looks over at him, where he’s sat on the bed. It’s true, they’ve shared smaller air mattresses, a one person tent on one memorable occasion. Dan’s not sure why his heartrate’s picked up a little. Phil’s not wrong.

“We’re sharing?” Dan finds himself asking, voice cracking a little. He closes the door behind him, leaning against it. If they’re going to argue about this, he doesn’t want Martyn and the bus owner people hearing.

“Dan,” Phil says. He doesn’t sound like he’s about to go off onto a rant about Dan being ashamed of him. “Don’t be dumb. You saw the bunks.”

It’s true. The bunks were very tiny. But Dan doesn’t know if he’s ready to wake up and go to sleep beside Phil for two months. He doesn’t know what will happen if he starts getting used to it.

“Sure,” he says, doing his damndest to stay calm. “But sharing a bed for two months. What if you snore? What will the crew say?”

Phil stands up and takes the few steps required to crowd Dan against the door. “Dan. You _actually_ talk in your sleep and I’m volunteering to share a bed with you. We’ll tell the crew the truth, which is that we’re both over 6 feet tall and have to move around and dance every day for three months and can’t do that if our spines are destroyed by those bunks. They’ll think we’re weird artistics. Or co-dependent.”

He tilts his head up to brush his mouth against Dan’s. He’s warm and familiar feeling as always and Dan feels a little bit of the calm from the hotel return as he raises his arms to rest around Phil’s waist, pulling him closer.

“Or they’ll think we’re together,” Dan murmurs, softening the comment with another kiss, then another, hoping not to start another argument but unable to stop from pointing it out.

“They wouldn’t be the first,” Phil says. “And would it be so bad, as long as they kept it to themselves?”

“Yes, Phil,” Dan says quietly, resting his forehead against Phil’s. “But we aren’t together.”

It feels a little bizarre to say, pressed up against each other against the door, no room between their bodies for anything but their clothes and Florida heat. The sun is shining around the dark blinds covering the windows of the bus and Dan wonders what it’d be like if they were together, if they could stop having this conversation.

“No, I suppose we aren’t,” Phil says. He’s smiling, but Dan still braces himself for Phil pulling away. Instead, Phil shrugs, wrapping his arms around Dan’s neck. “Then we have nothing to worry about.”

It doesn’t make any logical sense, but Phil is pulling him closer, and it’s hard to argue when you’re making out with your best friend on your tour bus, on the cusp of your American tour, so Dan lets it go for now.

 

Martyn—kind, hawkeyed Martyn—makes a lot of noise when he comes onto the bus. He doesn’t say anything when they come out of the back room, but his eyes catch on Dan’s ruffled hair, the wrinkles of Phil’s shirt. The guy who works at the bus place definitely doesn’t notice, just smiles and offers his name, a hand and an offer to show them a few secrets about the bus they may not have noticed.

 _martyn definitely knows_ , Dan texts Louise when he gets a chance to.

 

It’s night time by the time they make it back to the hotel, having toured the bus, done a bit of business and had dinner. Martyn disappears quickly and Dan’s looking at a texted invitation to Louise’s room to debrief properly. He chews his bottom lip, trying to decide. He kind of wants to return to Phil’s room, to continue their conversation (and the making out) from the bus. But he also doesn’t know what to do with this shift in Phil’s behavior. The open affection isn’t new, but feels charged, and Dan can’t help but respond, feels himself going flirty and cheeky.

It’s fine when it’s just them, but they’re about to go on tour and their followers are going to pick up on it in no time.

“Go on,” Phil says, pulling Dan from his thoughts. “Have a chat with Louise. I want to do some writing, got an idea for a video. Ask her if we can all have breakfast together tomorrow? Everyone who’s here?”

“Sure,” Dan says, a little grateful for the decision being made for him. He pulls up his chat with Louise to let her know he’s on his way as he and Phil walk to the elevator.

“Dan,” Phil says once they’re in and have pushed the floor numbers of their respective destinations. “Spend the night in my room?”

Dan looks at Phil in surprise. Asking after sex wouldn’t be surprising, they’ve been winding each other up all day. But this feels different. “Sure. Are we practicing bedsharing for the tour?”

Pleased surprise blooms on Phil’s face, as if he were expecting Dan to say no. “Sure. We can call it that,” he says, grinning.

The elevator dings, having reached Phil’s floor, and he exits with a little wave, leaving Dan to bite a knuckle to tamp down on his own smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what if i just said fuck the plot and just wrote 10k of happy make outs.
> 
> you can find me at thepisforpetty.tumblr.com, i dont bite


	3. your skin's not so tough

“We have a code red,” Dan says as soon as he’s closed Louise’s door behind him.

“Do we have codes now? I wasn’t consulted on that. What’s a code red?” Louise asks, hopping up onto her bed. “I’m sorry about this morning, by the way.”

Dan waves away her apology. “Not really your fault. Mostly anyway.” He flops face first onto the bed next to Louise and kicks off his shoes. “We’re sharing a bed.”

“Dan, what? I can’t understand you.” Louise pokes at his side until he turns over to stare at her white ceiling.

“We’re sharing a bed. On the bus? We asked for a room with two beds but that didn’t happen. So, we’re gonna share a bed for two months.” Dan rubs a hand over his face. “Also, we made out for like fifteen minutes on the bus, which is kind of new. And I’m pretty sure Martyn knows. Also, is it normal for your chest to ache when someone smiles at you a certain way?”

Louise nods. “Ok. Let’s take this one bit at a time. You’ve been having sex for years and you’ve never made out? Do you just stick it and run? That hardly seems like a way to treat your best friend.”

Dan shrugs. “No one does much sticking really. But we _kiss_. We just don’t kiss for no reason? It’s like hello, sex is imminent, kiss kiss. But we were on the bus, so sex definitely wasn’t happening. Phil just kinda…started kissing me. It might have been a distraction technique. I was freaking out about the bed sharing.”

Louise is silent for so long Dan glances over at her. She’s propped herself up against the headboard and is staring at him, eyebrows raised. Dan steals one of the free pillows to rest his head on, and stares back. His stomach churns anxiously, the way it’s taken to doing when he thinks too hard about the changes in Phil’s behavior.

 “Sharing beds was Phil’s idea?” She finally asks.

“Yes?” Dan says, unsure where she’s going with this. “He invited me to stay in his room tonight. I think we’re practicing. We’ve never really shared a bed that wasn’t inflatable. Or a sleeping bag.”

“Phil,” Louise continues, ignoring Dan’s rambling. “Phil suggests sharing a bed for the entire tour and initiates making out with you in the middle of tour of the bus. Where was Martyn?”

“Doing business stuff?” Dan shrugs. “He told us months ago we weren’t allowed to meddle in that side of things.”

Louise nods. “But he was with you all. Could’ve come onto the bus at any moment. And Phil knew that. And initiated making out with you.”

“Yeah, Lou. I don’t know. He’s been acting odd the last couple of days. Yesterday he cuddled me for no reason? You know me, I’m always up for a good hug, given enough warning, but it’s not really a thing we do.”

“Are you actually this stupid?” Louise asks in wonder.

“Lou!” Dan yelps. “Mean! And no! I’m very intelligent.”

“Dan!” Louise yells back. “Phil is in _love_ with you! He’s been acting like this since you told him you were in love with him!”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Louise, come on. Phil would have told me something like that. He’s the direct one. Ow!”

Louise smacks him with a pillow a few more times. “You’re both so dumb! Why are you like this! Just talk to him! Ask him how he feels!”

“Ah! Louise!” Dan rolls out of arms-length. “Stop it! Stop that!”

She throws the pillow after him, hitting him on the head. “You two need to stop having sex.”

“What?!” Dan squawks. “We need to do no such thing! Lou, I’m getting so laid tonight.”

“No!” Louise says, pointing a finger. “Clearly sex is confusing things for you. You can either tell him you still love him and have sex, or you can get over it and not have sex with him anymore. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, Dan.”

Dan sits up, crossing his arms and legs. “I don’t see what it matters, Lou. We were banging for years before I realized I was in love with him. It’s just a thing we do.” Also, the thought of spending night after night next to Phil and not allowing himself to reach across the small bed is nearly incomprehensible.

“Do you hear yourself when you speak?” Louise asks.

Dan rolls his eyes. “Lou, it’s _fine_. Seriously. I’ve got this under control.”

“What if Phil doesn’t,” Louise asks, quiet and concerned.

“He’s fine,” Dan says firmly. “Phil’s fine.”

 

Phil’s eyes light up when he opens the door for Dan, as if he thought Dan wouldn’t come.

“Long time no see, stranger,” Dan says. He’s been in Louise’s room for a few hours, going round and round with her about the sex with Phil thing. He’s agreed to try to hold out, conceding that it might not be the healthiest thing to do while getting over Phil.

“I was wondering when my husband would return from the war,” Phil says, clutching his chest and looking dramatically into the distance. He stops and walks toward the bed. “Come in. I was thinking of ordering a coffee.”

“Absolutely not,” Dan says, being the responsible one for once. Phil looks as tired as Dan feels. “Playlist starts tomorrow. We’re getting enough rest for once in our lives. Come on. Bed.”

Phil quirks an eyebrow but shrugs, picking his computer up off the bed to place on the desk. Dan watches him move around, taking him in. Phil’s his foil in a lot of ways, the length of his body giving him a weird almost-graceful quality for all his clumsiness. He moves to pull his shirt off and Dan feels like he ought to look away, even though his seen Phil naked thousands of times.

“Louise says we should stop having sex,” he blurts out instead. He really wishes he could stop being so bloody honest with Phil, but it’s like instinct to tell him everything, always.

Phil turns to look at Dan, confused. “Because of the age thing? I can understand arguments about our age difference when we started but it’s a moot point now, isn’t it?”

“I was well up for it!” Dan says, not for the first time today. He sits on the bed and pulls his shoes off, throwing them near the weird couch where Phil’s stowing his shoes. “Why is everyone so concerned with eighteen-year-old Dan’s sex life? No, she thinks it’s making it harder for me to get over being in love with you.”

“Ah,” Phil says, turning to look at Dan and leaning against the long desk taking up one wall of the hotel room. His face is carefully blank and Dan worries he’s called Phil’s earlier anger into the room. “Is it?”

“Nah,” Dan says lightly, standing up to wiggle out of his jeans. He steps out of the pile and pulls of his socks. “I’ve got it under control. That’s what they call me. Control Man Dan.”

“Not too much control, I hope,” Phil says, walking over right into Dan’s shirt. He slips his hands under Dan’s shirt to rest on his hips. Any memory of Dan’s compromise with Louise flies out of the window at the first touch of Phil’s fingers to his skin.

“Phil Lester!” Dan says, delighted and fake scandalized. “Was that a come on? A little bus kissing and you turn into some sort of sex demon.”

“Yeah,” Phil says, simply, pulling Dan’s shirt off. “Good thing all the kissing we’ll be doing soon will be bus kissing.”

Dan rests his arms on Phil’s shoulders, pulling them chest to chest. The skin to skin contact feels good, Phil’s skin a little cool from being shirtless longer. Again, Phil starts the kissing, pressing kisses along Dan’s jaw, tossing in an occasional gentle bite.

“We’re gonna be fucking exhausted,” Dan says, tilting his head to give Phil easy access to his neck. It’s not a thing he does for all his hookups, sometimes pushing them away with an apology and an explanation that his neck is a no-fly zone. It’s never been that way with Phil. He knew his neck was a thing before Phil, but sometimes if feels like Phil knows the secret combination of teeth and lips and pressure to turn Dan into a puddle. There’ve been a few times where he’s distracted Dan too well and Dan had to get creative about hiding marks on his neck every time he went out into public.

“Hah,” Phil buzzes against his neck. Dan shivers and pulls him closer still. He thinks, as Phil’s hands skate across his back before sliding downward, that Louise is probably right. He still doesn’t stop Phil when he slips his thumbs beneath the waistband of Dan’s pants.

 

 

Dan has imagined waking up next to Phil after sex. In retrospect, it really makes no sense that it took him years to realize he’s been in love with Phil for years. You don’t imagine waking up next to a fuckbuddy. But Dan’s definitely thought about waking up next to Phil.

He knew, before this morning, that Phil’s kind of a monosyllabic ogre before coffee, which is fine because so is Dan. He knew Phil’s feet were always freezing and magnetically attracted to anything warm, like Dan’s shins. He knew Phil’s hair always manages to coif itself into the most magnificent and bizarre quiffs while Phil sleeps.

He didn’t know that ogreness didn’t preclude cuddling, or that there was something somehow _better_ about cuddling naked. He didn’t expect it to be so difficult to get out of bed.

He’s not sure how long Phil’s been awake, but his been making (maybe) content grumbling noises and trying to burrow into the nape of Dan’s neck for the entire five minutes Dan’s been trying to convince himself to get up. The problem, Dan decides, is not that he’s warm. He lives in pullovers half the time, is a strong advocate of a good fire. He knows warmth. The problem is that Phil’s skin is so lovely and soft and his arms are just heavy enough and Dan’s going to have this for at least the next two months. And then it’s going to stop. So he has to savor all of it, save it up and tuck the memory of feeling like this in his mind, to call up after tour when he has to go back to his own, Philless bed. Louise is going to kill him. Dan’s pretty sure he’s more in love with Phil now than he was months ago when he first realized.

“We’re going to be late,” Dan tells him, eyes still closed. “We have a morning panel thing.”

“We could just stay here forever,” Phil says, mouth brushing against Dan’s neck. “They bring us food and clean the rooms.”

“Sorry buddy. Should’ve taken me up on that offer yesterday.” Dan tugs himself out of Phil’s arms and, regretfully, out of the cocoon of warmth they’ve created. “I call first shower. Gotta go to my room, get a change of clothes.”

Phil doesn’t respond, probably asleep again. Dan glances back at him. He’s awake, eyes roving over Dan’s body.

“Stop that! We’re going to be late!” Dan leans down to grab his pants and trousers from the floor.

“’m not doing anything!” Phil says, rolling in the sheets until he’s effectively a burrito. “You let all the warm out.”

“So, you’re staring at my ass? A likely story. I’ll shower in my room, away from your wiles. Starbucks for breakfast?”

Phil grunts agreement and goes quiet, definitely falling back asleep. Dan pulls his clothes on in silence. Once he’s dressed, he leans over Phil and shakes him a few times. “Wakey wakey, asshole. Meet you downstairs in 30.”

Phil’s grumbling again, but he’s unrolling himself from his sleep burrito, so Dan counts it as a win. He leaves before Phil can properly climb out, not trusting himself not to get distracted by so much of Phil’s exposed skin.

It occurs to Dan as he steps on the elevator, that this is essentially a walk of shame. It’d be hard for someone to tell, this mostly black outfit not terribly different from his other mostly black outfits. But he’s definitely walk-of-shame-ing right now. He laughs a little, smiling at his reflection in the elevator doors.

“Stride of pride,” he mutters to himself. He nods and the elevator rises to his floor.

 

When he gets to the Starbucks in the hotel lobby he finds Louise, but no Phil. She waves him over, eyes already narrowed.

“You have sex glow,” she says. “You and Phil both.”

“Wow, could we not talk about this in public?” He sits down at the table. She slides a cup of coffee at him.

“Phil said to give you that. He went back up to his room to get his camera. You couldn’t wait one night?”

Dan takes a sip of his coffee to buy himself time. How do you start a conversation about how you’re falling even _more_ into unrequited love with your best friend who’s also providing the best sex you’ve ever had and top notch morning cuddles. How did Dan find himself in this situation?

He’s blessedly saved by bustling crowd of American and British youtubers coming over to say good morning. Phil is with them, and slips into the chair next to Dan. Their knees bump.

“Everything ok?” Phil asks, eyes trained on Dan. Dan can feel Louise looking as well.

“Never better, mate,” Dan says, saluting him with this coffee. They’re sitting a little closer than normal, Phil invading the carefully maintained space between them. Dan wonders if he notices, if this is part of the weird psychological warfare Phil is unwittingly committing against Dan.

Probably not, Dan decides, drinking his coffee.

 

It was, Dan decides that night. It was definitely part of the psychological warfare. Playlist Live is Playlist Live. It’s exhilarating to meet their viewers face to face and hear their stories. It’s also exhausted to be on in front of so many people for so long. Dan is thankful for every dark corner he can find, grabbing a few minutes to breathe and recharge.

Phil finds him more often than not, never far away. It’s fine, Phil doesn’t deplete Dan’s stores of energy like most people do. They stand together quietly, a little off from a group of people. Phil turns his body so it looks like they’re having a private conversation. It’s a system they’ve worked out.

After a few minutes of silence, Phil taps Dan’s hip. “Okay?”

“Never better,” Dan answers, just about ready to reenter the fray. Phil nods and wanders off. Dan realizes, watching Phil walk away, that he’d kept his hand on Dan’s hip for the entirety of their short conversation.

They’d never had an official conversation about how much public touching is acceptable. Once they’d started pulling back they’d come to an unspoken consensus that served them well until now. It’s small things: Phil pressing a hand to the middle of Dan’s back in pictures instead of his shoulder, bumping their hips together when they’re standing around, generally standing a little too close.

Dan’s not uncomfortable. He keeps waiting for discomfort to come, like he’s waiting for a fan to notice something’s going on. Neither happens. Phil keeps touching him. The world keeps spinning.

No one even blinks when, at dinner that night, Phil throws his arm onto the back of Dan’s chair and leaves it there for much of the night. A few other youtubers are staying on the same floor as Phil and they all walk back together. No one says anything when Dan follows Phil into Phil’s hotel room.

He sleeps in Phil’s room again that night. They’re too tired to do much more than kiss. Dan still sleeps really, really well.

The second and third day of Playlist are more of the same; no one noticing Phil slowly creeping into Dan’s personal space and Dan’s smile growing warmer with every inch.

Before the know it, they’re rehearsing for their first American show.

The American stages are undeniably larger, getting from one side to the other to meet cues feels like cardio. They run through bits and pieces of the script all the time, they’ve got it down to a science, but saying all the right words when crossing a stage twice the size as some of the European stages makes things harder.

He and Phil are sitting on the stage in Jacksonville, catching their breath and hydrating. Dan’s just pulled his phone out of his pocket and is opening twitter when he feels Phil thump onto his back, resting his head on Dan’s thigh.

“I’m dying,” Phil says, pressing a hand to his chest. Dan can hear the congestion every time he breathes. “I’m leaving everything to you, delete my browsing history.”

“I already know what weird porn you’re into,” Dan says absently, ruffling Phil’s hair. There’s someone talking about the new Kaytranada album he’s been meaning to look up. Phil’s not actually into anything particularly weird, but it’s been a running joke between the two of them for years. “Those poor house plants didn’t deserve that.”

“You said we’d never talk about that in public,” Phil counters. “Stop kinkshaming me.”

“Guys,” their stage manager says. “Quit cuddling, break’s about over.”

Dan looks up in surprise, catching a few people milling around. He’d thought everyone was still backstage. He’d been too distracted by the tweet thread to notice them. He’d also been distractedly petting Phil, running his hand through Phil’s dark hair. It’s nearly time for a touch up, his brown roots starting to show. Phil’s eyes are closed, the cold he’s picked up in the last days of Playlist still kicking his ass.

“Just a minute,” he calls back, careful to not snatch his hand away from Phil’s head. He’s determined not to have a rematch of their fight from earlier. He’s not ashamed of Phil. He’s not ashamed of their friendship.

“Phil,” He bounces the leg Phil’s resting on gently. “Flip. Philo dough. Up and at ‘em.”

“Ugh,” Phil says. “Five more minutes, mom.”

“Roleplay, kinky,” Dan says, poking Phil’s cheek. “No can do. Our adoring public awaits.”

Phil opens his eyes and sits up with a groan. The stage manager claps sarcastically a few times then gestures for them to get back to the marks they were standing at before break.

Dan moves on autopilot through the rest of rehearsal. He expected Phil’s PDA campaign to end after Playlist Live when there were fewer people who cared who they were around. And Phil definitely backed off after he’d gotten sick, sending Dan to sleep in his own room the last night before they departed for the bus.

But Dan’s gotten used to Phil being all in his space over the last week, finds himself reaching for Phil now, tugging him into sitting closer on the bus or standing closer when they’re talking in a group.

Whatever Phil’s up to is working on Dan like a charm. In the space Phil’s re-established to keep Dan from getting sick, Dan finds himself missing Phil.

 

They rehearse for another hour before they’re sent back to the bus with a mandate that they both rest up. Phil follows the direction immediately, flopping onto the small bed in the back of the bus, only awake long enough to take off his shoes and jeans. Dan putters around the small room for a little while, moving their luggage and technology into something like organization.

When he’s done, he grabs one of their iPads and crawls into bed, stepping over Phil’s prone body to slip between him and the wall.

Phil wakes a little, coughing a few times then moving closer, throwing his torso across Dan’s lap. Dan rolls his eyes but rubs Phil’s back.

Phil makes a content noise and lets out a congested sigh, his body going limp again. Dan’s glad he’d grabbed the tablet now, clearly trapped until it’s time to wake Phil up. They’d figured out, from the nights at the hotel, that they couldn’t really fall asleep touching each other, but often woke up curled together. The weight of Phil’s sleeping body becomes more familiar every time they share a bed.

He rests the tablet on Phil’s back, pulling up the gallery of photos they’d started picking through in to go into the photobook.

He’s swiping and saving for probably an hour when someone knocks on the door.

“Yes?” he calls, glancing at Phil.

“It’s Martyn, can I come in?”

Dan bites his lip, looking between the door and Phil’s back. There’s not really a way to explain this away. But Martyn’s also hung out with them for years, isn’t unfamiliar with casual touching between them. It’s fine. It’s probably fine.

“Yeah,” Dan calls back. “Come in.”

“This won’t take but a sec, just wanted to-“ Martyn cuts himself off, his eyes falling to Phil, sprawled across Dan, his face buried in the space between Dan’s hip and the wall. “Wow, he’s really out of it, huh?”

“Yeah. He should probably rest as much as possible.” Dan says and looks at Martyn defiantly. There was nothing unusual happening here. He was just being a concerned friend, making sure Phil was comfortable while he rested.

“Of course. I was going to ask if you wanted food? A bunch of us were going to walk over to this little shopping center.” Martyn closes the door behind himself, leaning against it. Dan is relieved to feel a little less exposed.

“Whatever’s fine for me, just no meat. Maybe some soup for Phil.” He nods down at his human blanket, as if Martyn would be unsure who Phil is.

“Got it,” Martyn nods. “One meatless whatever, one soup.” He stands up straight and goes to open the door. He pauses and glances back, at Phil then at Dan. “I’m glad you two idiots finally worked out whatever was stopping you. We’ve been waiting for years for Phil to get it together and properly date you.”

Martyn’s gone before Dan has time to react, which is for the best. Dan directs his wide eyed stare at Phil’s shirt covered shoulders.

“Your family thinks we’re dating,” Dan hisses at him. “Everyone thinks we’re dating. Phil, what is _happening_.”

“Shh,” Phil says back sleepily. “Talk about it later.”

“You’re awake? How long have you been awake?” Dan shoves lightly at Phil. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“Since you started talking. Now, shhh.” Phil cuddles closer, wrapping his arms around Dan’s lower half.

Dan doesn’t know how this keeps happening. Phil keeps managing to evade a conversation Dan suspects they really should be having and Dan’s certainty that he’d know if Phil returned his feelings is started to wear thin.

He puts the tablet down in the empty space beside them on the bed and shifts around to get his phone out of his pocket. Phil grumbles at the movement and Dan shushes him.

 _dear diary,_ he messages Louise, _i’m a lovesick idiot who should definitely listen to louise. martyn knows. walked in on us cuddling. says his whole family’s been waiting on us to get our shit together._

Louise responds almost instantly, even though its late in London.

_Darling :(_

Dan laughs helplessly.

_i think you might be right, lou. he might feel the same._

Louise sends back a single balloon emoji and a question mark.

 _idk_ , he sends back. _why wouldn’t he say something?_

_Maybe he’s scared? Worried about messing up your relationship? Any of the reasons you’re scared to love him?_

Louise’s words are like a punch to the chest. Fear is the thing Dan’s been dancing around since he uncovered his feelings. Fear that Phil would reject him. Fear that they’d try dating and fail. Fear that this love with irreparably change things between them.

 _what if he’s right_?

“The thing is,” Dan says, quietly into Phil’s hair, and looking out of the window sky quickly darkening into dusk. “I’ve realized I was in love with you when I was still at uni. You had just stopped being that guy that I fangirled and stalked into being my friend and I was already in love. That was before you became half of my entire life.”

Phil murmurs in his sleep and Dan pulls him closer, tucking their bodies more tightly together.

“And now I can’t imagine making a life with anyone else. And I think you feel the same. But what if you don’t and it ruins everything?”

And that’s the most frightening thought. Because he’s almost certain Phil feels the same, but almost feels like a chasm he has to jump across without a net or parachute. Their lives feel too wrapped up together to risk making the leap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phil's all show and dan's all tell. i swear this ends happily.


	4. born with a weak heart

Dan wakes up too warm and sweating. He and Phil had shifted at some point during their nap and now he’s flat on his back, Phil halfway on top of him. Beside them on the bed, Dan’s phone is buzzing in a silent alarm. 

Dan yawns and presses his hand into Phil’s side, pushing him off. Phil grumbles and opens his eyes blurrily. 

“What?” He asks, yawning back at Dan.

Dan sits up and makes a face at his phone. “We’ve got about twenty minutes til we have to leave for the venue.”

Phil makes a face and rolls off the bed, mumbling something about going to pee. 

“No solids,” Dan calls after him, snickering. Phil doesn’t respond. 

Dan flips his phone open, checking his notifications. He and Louise had talked a little more, about his Phil problem, coming to the conclusion that he owed it to himself to give it a chance. 

The problem now is he doesn’t know how to give things a chance without having to have an awkward conversation with Phil about what to do if things didn’t work. Their friendship makes everything harder. It feels ridiculous to think that it won’t work, they fit together so well and have for years. But not having that frightens Dan more than he can explain to Louise.

Before he can start his conversation with Louise back up, Phil comes back into the room and flops back down onto the bed. 

“Are you ready to do this?” Phil asks. 

Dan looks at him in alarm, turning his phone screen off. “Do what?”

Phil gives him a strange look. “Opening night of our tour? Running around a stage for two hours? Our lives are weird and wonderful?”

“Oh,” Dan says. “Yes! Totally. Are you feeling better?”

Phil shrugs. “Not really, but the show must go on. What did you think I was talking about doing?”

Dan nods and ignores Phil’s question. “We’ll get some more soup in you and some cough syrup before the show. And early to bed tonight. No movies.”

“Ugh,” Phil says, grabbing his pillow and propping himself up on it. “Fine, Mom.”

“Kinky,” Dan says dutifully and, on a whim, leans over to drop a kiss on Phil’s cheek. “Get better so we can make out on this dumb bed.”

“I’ll make out on your dumb face,” Phil says, smiling. For this, Dan gives him another kiss, careful to avoid his mouth. The show will be no good if they’re both hacking up a lung. 

 

Somewhere between the bus and the venue Dan comes up with a solution for giving things a try. He thinks of the way Phil had looked a little less droopy after a few kisses and the way they’d woken up mashed together. He thinks about all the people that thought they were together already and the easy way members of the crew made space for them to sit or stand next to each other. Mostly, though, Dan thinks about the way Phil just seems to gravitate toward him unconsciously, certain that he responds in kind.

At some point he decides to just do it, to stop fighting and just quietly let himself be in love with Phil for a few weeks. And if nothing implodes, he can tell Phil how he still feels, and they can talk about what that means for them.

It starts tonight, in the dressing room with him absently rubbing Phil’s back while he coughs. One of the attendants that works at the venue walks in and Dan holds himself very still, fighting the urge to yank his hand away. 

The attendant smiles vaguely at them, clearly looking for someone in charge. Dan helpfully points to Martyn, who tells the attendant what she needs to know.

Dan keeps rubbing Phil’s back in slow, warm circles. Phil pushes back against his hand a little, sighing in relief when the coughing stops.

\--

It starts off with little touches. Dan hadn’t really noticed how much he’d been holding back around Phil the last year until he lets himself go. He finds himself grabbing Phil’s hips to move him around when they’re on the bus. He throws his legs over Phil’s lap when they’re sitting around the dressing room prepping. He lets Phil feed him cough syrup when he’s feeling poorly and doesn’t even mind people taking pictures. 

Phil doesn’t seem to notice really, just smiles at him and finds excuse to sit closer, to throw his arm around Dan’s shoulder or bump their elbows together. 

At night, on the bus, Dan lets himself be tender, plays with Phil’s hair and presses absent kisses to his spotted shoulders when they’re watching something on the computer.

He finds himself a little addicted to the happy, pleased noises Phil makes, sometimes chases them down Phil’s throat, pressing his lips and teeth to the pale skin there.

Dan hadn’t noticed how shy he’d been about initiating sex either, until he’s started running his hands down Phil’s back with intention, has started tugging him back into bed to stay for longer and longer. 

And Phil goes, happy to be trapped in the small room with Dan. 

It feels better. It feels good. Dan lets himself fall into this with Phil and does his best not to look for the bad side, determined to have this for as long as he can without having to question himself, or them. 

 

 

Tour passes really quickly and really slowly all at once. They meet hundreds of viewers, take hundreds of pictures, work really hard at developing good relationships with the crew. 

The crew is mostly older dudes and a few women, all of whom seem mildly perplexed by Dan and Phil and very perplexed by their fanbase, but otherwise cool. They get used to his and Phil’s insular nature quickly, inviting them out for drinks and dinner, but not seeming surprised when they beg off. 

They still cheer a little when he and Phil agree to go to dinner with everyone else the evening after their Niagara Falls trip. 

When he and Phil come down to the hotel restaurant the crew is already there and they’ve left two open seats for them. In the past, Dan might have made a joke about how he and Phil actually _can_ be more than two feet apart at any moment. Instead, he sits down and starts talking to one of the guys about the show, pressing his calf against Phil’s, who presses back.

\--

No one says anything, or seems to notice at all, which makes Dan think that they weren’t being particularly subtle in the first place. The crew keeps making room for them both on the rare dinners they share, and not questioning it when he and Phil opt to take dinner in their hotel rooms or on the bus.

The viewers don’t seem to notice anything during the meet and greets, which eases one of Dan’s biggest fears: that he and Phil wouldn’t be able to tell in their own time if there was ever something to tell. Instead they meet him and Phil, take pictures and give them gifts. They make fun of his stupid anxious camera pose and his weird half hugs and Dan makes fun of them for being so weird and wonderful. It’s all normal. 

One morning, Dan wakes up to an empty bed, the hum and roll of the bus beneath him. He stretches and pulls on pajama pants and one of the threadbare shirts he can’t readily identify as his or Phil’s because it’s been in their lives for so long.

He can hear the murmur of people on the bus, which makes sense. It’s half past eleven, a little later than he prefers to wake up. He takes a detour to the bathroom and makes his way to the front of the bus, where Phil’s listening to a few of the merch crew tell stories.

Dan waves and yawns at them, stopping to lean over and drop a kiss on the top of Phil’s head before continuing through to their little kitchen area. 

He’s halfway through making a bowl of cereal when he realizes that whatever conversation they’d been having before he came in has stopped. He ignores the squirming in his stomach. He’s been fully aware of what he was doing, decided a few days ago to test himself and how much he was willing to let other people see. If he and Phil were going to do this, they weren’t going to half ass some secret relationship where they couldn’t touch each other in front of others.

Dan finishes putting together his bowl of cereal and turns around to lean against the counter. He’s been working on his ability to stand steady on the moving bus and finds it’s not entirely impossible to lean and eat at the same time. 

Phil’s staring at him, eyes a little wide. Martyn looks fond, and amused. The rest of the crew wears varying expressions of surprise. Dan can’t imagine they’re surprised to know he and Phil aren’t just friends (he tactfully does not start to think about what they might be if they aren’t just friends), so he assumes their surprise is his willingness to be so flagrant about it. 

“So,” Phil says finally, looking away from Dan. “A girl tried to bribe you to take her to the bus?” There’s a little smile playing on his lips, like he’s trying not to grin this wide. Dan smiles down into his cereal. 

“Yes!” A guy who’s name always escapes Dan says. “She couldn’t have been more than 14.”

Dan lets the conversation wash over him, allowing his mind to wander. If that had been some sort of test, he and Phil passed with flying colors. 

\--

They pass another test later that day, walking down from the crew that had insisted on stopping for frozen yogurt. They’re at another strip mall in some part of the US that was weirdly flat. Dan finds it a little freaky, personally, how much the US looks alike. These weird little shopping areas all look eerily similar. 

He and Phil are walking down the side walk, along the parade of open air stores. Dan had finished his little cup of froyo before they’d left, but Phil is working on the last bits of the strawberry push pop he’s insisted on getting.

On a whim, Dan grabs his hand, lacing their fingers together. They’rere a few hundred miles from their next stop, and it’s the middle of the day. He doubts the white-haired grandmothers puttering around from Old Navy to Target are viewers of theirs.

Phil flinches a little and Dan pulls his hand away immediately. 

“No, no, Dan.” Phil reaches out, touching the back of his left arm. “It’s not that. It’s fine. I’d hold hands with you but we’re…”

He gestures around him. Dan looks at him, expectant and curious of the reason. 

“Middle America,” Phil says helplessly. “I’m not ready to get disapproving looks from other people’s nans yet.” 

Dan pauses and nods. Phil has a point. He’s not certain he’s ready to answer anyone’s nan’s questions about their relationship, disapproving or not. He gets a vision of a silver-haired old woman keeling over from heart attack after Dan’s explained that he and Phil aren’t dating, just best friends that fuck a lot. He’s not ready to be anyone’s cause of death.

Phil darts forward, pressing a soft, slightly sticky kiss to the corner of Dan’s mouth then keeps moving, walking towards the _Super_ Target. Dan wonders what made it so _Super_ , pressing a thumb to the corner of his upturned mouth. He pulls his phone out, opens Twitter.

_America, this obsession with superlatives is weird and great,_ he tweets _._ He attaches a picture of the Super Target, Phil in the center, pushing the door open.

\--

Dan knows there are no more tests, no more boundaries to push, no more sore spots to press into when he wakes up too early the morning before the Denver show. Dim sunlight is just barely peeking around their blinds and he’s still feeling loose and a little buzzy from the Welcome to Denver brownie one of the crew members gave him to split with Phil the night before. He isn’t feeling as much as he had the night before, remembers the molasses slow pleasure of Phil’s mouth dragging over his skin and the way, after they’d both came, they’d whispered back and forth about how ridiculous their life was, how glad they were to have each other. 

Now, he just feels the pulls of last night’s high, the way it takes a little longer for his fingers to grip his phone, the slow, sussurant sound of Phil’s breathing. 

Dan doesn’t really give it a second thought. He feels really nice, genuinely _good_ and wants to share it with his friends. He opens snapchat and takes the picture. He’s aware of Phil’s arm thrown across his hips, sees Phil’s freckled shoulder and a sliver of the pale skin of his neck in the picture. He doesn’t think twice of it, throws a black and white filter on the picture and sends it directly to Louise and posts it to his story, captioned: _what if someone else meets our greets today?_

They both primarily use snapchat to look at their friends’ stories, don’t really snap regularly and when they do, it’s usually of the other doing some weird shit that they don’t want to share with the fandom.

Satisfied, Dan sets an hour alarm and falls back asleep.

Phil’s still asleep when he wakes up again, unaffected by the low, insistent buzzing of Dan’s phone.

Dan turns the alarm off, yawning and gently nudges Phil, who makes a noise and rolls off Dan and over to face the wall. Dan unlocks his phone, notice he has several of the little ghosts notifying him he has snaps, a few texts from Louise and a few missed calls.

Curious, he opens the snaps first, surprised to see he’s got responses from people he snaps all the time like Lou and Tyler, but also from people he’d followed more out of courtesy than anything, like Zooey and Marcus Butler. 

Dan frowns and opens his own story, checking to see if Phil’s posted some troll picture of him drooling. 

Phil hasn’t done that. Dan definitely did this. Now that the last of the buzzing and general warmth has faded (sort of, Phil’s back is still very warm and morning soft again him), Dan realizes that the snap is maybe a little scandalous. 

They’re both very obviously shirtless, Dan’s hair is a curly wreck he hadn’t bothered to straighten after his shower. His clavicle is decorated with dark shadows of lovebites and he’s pressed the side of his face into Phil’s hair a little. The black and white reminds him of some of the dailybooths he should find embarrassing, but can’t help but be a little pleased by, recognizing the nascent hints of his own attractiveness. 

Frankly, Dan looks well fucked and in love. 

Which explains why Tyler’s left him a string of aubergine and lovehearts, scattered with a few eyes with raised eyebrows.

Others have sent him strings of exclamation marks and “omg finally!”s and a few “is that _Phil_?!”s. 

Dan snorts at those. As if he’d have time to pull someone new in the midst of a tour and being massively in love with Phil. 

Phil, who’s privacy he’s violated with this snap. Phil, who’s yet to say if he loves Dan back. Phil, who’s been going along with Dan’s _thing_ , Dan’s experiment without question.

Dan curses under his breath and goes back to his story to delete the picture. He takes a moment to save it to his phone. It’s a good picture, one he’d miss if this turns out well. 

He looks over at Phil, who’s shifting, the way he does when he’s just about to wake up. Dan can’t help but reach out, run a hand down the knobby rise and fall of Phil’s spine. He knows he’s going to have to tell Phil that all their friends know now. He just isn’t sure what it is they know, quite yet.

\--

“Louise,” Dan says. Phil had finally stumbled out of the bed a few minutes ago, grumbling about coffee. Dan stares at the door. The Gatorland hat is hanging from the hook, its little gems shining in the sunlight. Phil had opened the blinds because he knows Dan likes the room filled with early morning sun, but won’t open it before Phil’s awake. 

“Louise, I gotta tell him.” Something in Dan’s chest clenches. The bus is humming around him. This room has become a little extension of their apartment, their clothes on the floor, the random souvenirs they’ve picked up littering every available surface. There’s a shoebox holding a growing stack of pictures that are eventually going to be a book of the tour. Dan’s feelings are irrepressible and it’s almost as if they’ve exploded over the room. 

Louise is silent on the other end. Dan can imagine her facial expression. America’s northwest passes by the window. Dan can hear Phil in the kitchen area, the clink of spoon hitting bowl.

“You still haven’t told him?” Louise asks. She doesn’t sound horrified, or shocked, the way she has so many times since Dan first told her. She sounds tentative, a little tired and a little sad.

“No,” Dan tells her. There’s a catch in his throat. “I thought I’d just let myself love him and see what happens? And it’s been good, it’s been so good. Obviously. You saw the pictures. But he hasn’t told me either.”

“Dan,” she says and Dan’s laughing, and his eyes are too warm and he’s not going to cry, he’s not. He just feels a lot, guilt and frustration, a little quiet hope that maybe this will be the thing that pushes them to talk.

“Should I be happy?” he asks, rolling over to press his head into Phil’s pillow. It smells like Phil and the shampoo they share. “I’ve managed to fall _more_ in love with him, and I still haven’t told him. And he still hasn’t told me. Lou, I can’t.”

“Dan. Dan. Darling.”

For all of Louise is warm, and amused affection, she doesn’t call him pet names very often. Only when she sees the cracks spreading across him, and she knows he’s very, very close to breaking. It worries Dan, a little, that she’s seeing them now. 

“Yeah?” He’s getting Phil’s pillow wet with tears he’s definitely not crying. It’d be dumb to cry over being in love with someone who’s _probably_ in love with you.

“Try new things.” Louise says firmly.

Dan’s caught up short with surprise. It’s been his and Phil’s phrase for a while, tossed back and forth between them, quiet and encouraging. It’s jarring to hear it from someone that isn’t Phil.

“What?” He drags a hand through his hair. Louise sighs loudly.

“Bottling up your feelings obviously didn’t do any good, you daft boy. Overthinking things hasn’t fixed anything. _Not telling him_ has done fuckall. So why don’t you try telling him?”

Dan opens his mouth to answer and finds he has nothing. He’s spent so much time functioning under the idea that he _can’t_ tell Phil, that things will turn _bad_ if they’re together that he hasn’t really allowed himself to consider alternatives.

“Oh,” he breathes. The door opens. Dan sits up, sniffling and wiping his face off. Phil raises an eyebrow. 

“Louise says hi,” Dan tells him. “Lou, I gotta go.”

“Remember what I said, Dan,” Louise says, her voice stern.

“I will,” Dan says, seriously. “I’ll…I’ll do it, Lou.” Phil’s still looking at him, curious now. He’s wrapped up in his blue pug hoodie, against the blustering a/c of the bus. His hair’s infuriatingly neat and now that he’s had coffee he looks mostly human. He crawls onto the bed, and sits crosslegged, knee pressing into Dan’s thigh.

Dan feels exposed, his chest bare, his cheeks still a little wet with crying he didn’t do. 

“Good,” Louise says, equally serious. “Tell Phil _I_ love him, at least.”

Dan laughs a little wet chuckle. “I will give him your love. Bye, Lou.”

He hits the end call button and looks over at Phil, who’s frowning down at his phone. 

“Morning,” Dan says, cautiously. 

“Morning,” Phil says back. “Why are you crying? Does it have anything to do with Tyler Oakley complimenting my…hickey technique? Americans use really odd words.”

Phil’s nonplussed by Dan’s tears, which isn’t unusual. There was a point in their lives when Dan cried often, frustrated with the stupid Valentine’s Day prank and the viewers that wouldn’t just _believe_ them. Phil’s spent plenty of time comforting Dan and plenty of time ignoring the tears, on Dan’s instruction.

Dan today grimaces and pulls up the pictures, handing Phil his phone. “I posted that to snapchat earlier. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I was definitely still a little high.”

Phil looks at the picture for a long, quiet moment, chewing on his bottom lip. Dan quietly frets beside him. He hasn’t planned anything to say to Phil, isn’t sure what to expect Phil to say. He realizes he should have clued Phil in on his experiement, mde sure Phil’s comfortable with Dan pushing them in this way. Dan waits for Phil’s to say something, bracing himself.

“It reminds me of the old pictures you used to send me.” Phil says finally. Dan feels his cheeks heat. He’d nearly forgotten about the pictures he used to send Phil, the dailybooth rejects that were too risqué even for his reckless eighteen year old self. Honestly, he could use some of that boldness now. Phil does something on Dan’s phone then tosses it back to him.

Dan raises an eyebrow and Phil shrugs, smiles a little shameless grin. 

“I sent it to myself,” Phil admits. 

“You dirty old man!” Dan accuses. Phil laughs.

“You aren’t mad?” Dan can’t help pushing, has to know.

Phil shrugs. “I’m pretty sure everyone knew after Playlist anyway. Youtuber grape vine. You can’t see my face anyway. Plausable deniability.”

Dan snorts. “Ah yes, I’d definitely bring someone back to the room we’re sharing for three months.”

Phil shrugs and gestures to the phone. “You’re pretty shameless, Howell. Just look at the filth you’re posting on social media.”

Dan squawks and throws a pillow at Phil’s head.

\--

Because Dan is Dan, he doesn’t tell Phil immediately. He needs this to be a Statement, different from months and months ago when he’d told Phil in their flat, both of them in their pajamas: a declaration of love immediately followed by a disaster response plan. He toys with the idea of telling him on stage, discarding the idea before its fully formed. He doesn’t want to mortify Phil, or put their careers in jeopardy. 

He decides to tell him after the party they’re planning after their last show, on the off, _off_ chance things don’t go well. He imagines them, high on love and success and each other. He imagines telling Phil he loves him, wants to keep building a life with him, wants him to stay forever and ever. 

He’s vaguely aware that this sounds more like a marriage proposal than a declaration of love, but that feels apt, too. They’re too much part of each other’s lives to just say “I love you”. It has to be something bigger, and better; an I love you, an I’m sorry, a forget the months I lead you on.

It doesn’t matter. It’s not what happens. 

This is what happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back! thanks to all the folks who've read this far and were patient while i took a lil break from posting. we're in the home stretch, y'all!


	5. oh, to be with you

Dan’s birthday happens.

Technically, it’s a few days after Dan’s birthday that happens.

They do a show the day before his birthday, which is silly but great. A little part of Dan feels like he’s celebrating his birthday with their audience. Nearly everyone in the meet and great tells him happy birthday and he gets more than a few birthday gifts from them. Usually his birthday is bittersweet, tinged with this weird and annoying existential reminder that his life is passing him by. This time, there’s less of that, less time to get in his head, more time to smile and thank the people who’ve been part of making his life so unbelievable.

It’s a few days after that, and after his proper birthday, the night after Vegas that it happens.

Phil pours Dan into bed, after hours celebrating in the brightness of Vegas. Dan’s giggly, drunk and clinging to the ridiculous blue piñata they’d gotten him. Friends and family, crew and the random fan have celebrated with him, flitting in and out of awareness. They’re all part of the incredulous glee Dan’s been feeling since they started his birthday celebration with dinner in a bought out restaurant. He’s been giggly since the first glass of champagne, only gotten worse with drinks and cake and winning a fair amount on slot machines.

Phil’s been there through it all, managing him with a hand to the small of his back, soft suggestions that he try this drink, this dessert. He’s held the piñata (appropriately named Susan) when Dan needs both hands to hug someone. He’s kept track of Dan’s chips in the casino. He’s been a perfect, perfect partner and Dan tells him so, slurring a little. Dan feels loose and sunshine bright with happiness.

“Best birthday ever,” he murmurs into the neck of the piñata he’s clutching close.

“Yeah?” Phil asks from a distance. He’s on the other side of their hotel room, pulling his clothes off. Dan watches as he pulls off his button up, nearly tips over when he tries to pull off his trousers. Dan’s drunk, floating happily on the gentle spin of alcohol, but he knows that Phil’s not nearly as sober as he seems. When Phil’s drunk, his Northern accent comes out of nowhere, just like Dan gets annoyingly posh. The first time they’d gotten properly smashed together, they hadn’t been able to understand each other, screeching and laughing at each other in exaggerated accents.

“It’s not over yet,” Phil tells him, vowels long and round. His eyes are sparkling, his skin pale in the light of Vegas filtering through the frosted glass of their window. Dan loves him so much it hurts.

“You’re pretty,” Dan says. Phil crawls closer, starts picking at the buttons of Dan’s shirt.

“Happy birthday,” Phil tells him very seriously, abandoning Dan’s shirt to work on his skinny jeans.

 

Half an hour later, Dan is gasping for breath. His fingers are buried in Phil’s hair, Phil’s mouth is hot around him, familiar and maddening. He’s been close for a while, whiskey dick be damned, but Phil keeps backing off as soon as Dan’s hips rise up, looking for the rhythm that will get him there.

“Fuck _off_ ,” Dan whines, pressing against the arm Phil has pressed against his hip. He wants to come. It’s his birthday, he should get to come.

Phil pulls off and looks up at him. His eyes are _still_ glittering with amusement, his tongue poked out of his smile.

“Spoiled,” Phil says and leans down to bite and the thin, sensitive skin stretched over Dan’s hip bone. His voice is husky; Dan imagines his throat is a little raw. He’s been taking Dan deep into his throat, the way he can’t when they have a show the next day. This is the best birthday Dan’s ever had.

“Your fault,” Dan replies, a little out of breath. The room is still spinning. “Made me spoiled.”

“Mm,” Phil says, taking Dan back into his mouth. He licks and sucks, doesn’t hold Dan’s hips down as they roll forward.

“Oh,” Dan says, fingers finding Phil’s hair again, pushing into Phil’s mouth. “Oh, oh.”

Phil runs a hand along Dan’s thigh, presses his fingers along his flank, up to press his fingers into Dan’s hips, encouraging.

“I-“ Dan gasps, feeling himself tip over the edge. He comes, gasping and moans, “Love you. I love you. Fuck, love you, Phil.”

Dan falls asleep immediately, skin sensitive, drunk and sated down to his bones.

\--

Dan wakes and wishes he hadn’t. The sun seems brighter in Nevada. Probably because humans shouldn’t settle in the desert. He groans into his pillow. Susan, the piñatacorn, is to his right. Her papier-mâché fur rustles a little when he pulls her closer. She isn’t soft, really, but she’s the only thing about the world that isn’t spinning right now. 

“Don’t move,” Phil says from his other side. Dan snorts and groans. He’s not moving anywhere anytime soon. The room’s moving enough for all of them.

“What’re you doing,” he grunts into the pillow. His head doesn’t hurt. His hangovers live in his stomach, in the spinning room, in his sensitivity to light. His skin prickles a little in the cold of the room. Phil must have turned the air conditioning up.

“Taking pictures,” Phil says simply. “For the tour book.”

Dan lays quietly, holding Susan and debating whether or not he’s going to puke. Probably not. He hadn’t eaten much after dinner. Phil and others had plied him with drinks, not desserts.

“How much did I win last night?” Dan asks. He considers opening his eyes, decides against it. He knows what Susan looks like, can imagine what Phil, magical and hangover-impervious Phil, looks like. Bright eyed and fucking bushy tailed. What an asshole.

“About $200,” Phil says. Dan can feel him finally settling on the other side of Dan. “I’m taking it. Charging for being your babysitter. I made sure you didn’t get kidnapped and didn’t post anything unfortunate to the internet.”

The back of Dan’s eyelids is mostly dark, save for the occasional jagged spark of color. He can still imagine Phil’s smile, just from the fondness in his voice.

“Don’t shame me,” Dan says. “You love my unfortunate pictures.”

Phil definitely says something back. Dan’s just not sure what it is, already mostly back asleep.

 

Dan feels much more human the second time he wakes up. He can open his eyes and the room is mostly stable again. He still stumbles when he rolls out of bed, desperate for a piss.

“Careful,” Phil murmurs. Dan glances back at him and his chest clenches. Phil’s wearing the threadbare shared custody shirt, boxers and glasses. He’s doing something on Dan’s computer. There’s a mug on the nightstand on his side of the bed, the side stained with little drops of coffee.

Dan remembers, with striking clarity, what he said the night before.

He shuffles to the bathroom, pees and then stands, looking at himself in the big mirror over the sink.

He’d had plans. He’d thought about announcing it in front of his friends, about pulling Phil to the side between the show and the party. He’d wanted to tell him quietly or loudly. He’d wanted to tell Phil _on purpose_ , not slipping out of his liquor loose mouth while he’s coming his brains out.

“There’s a chance he didn’t hear,” Dan whispers to his reflection. “Or maybe he doesn’t remember.” Phil wasn’t as drunk as Dan was, but he was far from sober.

Dan brushes his teeth and toys with the idea he might still have his big declaration. He finishes brushing his teeth, comes out of the bathroom and lays down on the bed, pushing Susan out of the way to he can press his forehead to Phil’s hip.

“Feeling better?” Phil asks, reaching down to pet Dan’s hair.

“Ugh,” Dan says honestly. He throws an arm over Phil’s leg, cuddling close. Opening one eye, Dan looks at what Phil’s fucking around with on Dan’s computer.

Dan recognizes the picture of the shoes before he can properly read the “Surprise! We’re engaged.”

Dan chokes on his own spit.

Phil shoots him a concerned look as Dan hacks and coughs.

“Are you going to puke?” he looks vaguely wary, as if he’s judging if he’s in the line of fire if Dan does puke.

“Nope!” Dan says, his voice high and a little squeaky. “What’ve you got there?”

Phil glances at the computer. “Oh, this? I found it earlier this morning. I was looking for that picture of me when I fell asleep with all my pill bottles, back when I was sick. The one where you photoshopped anime faces onto them?”

Dan sits up, letting the duvet slide off his chest. He’s not certain if the goosebumps are from the chilly room or the fact that Phil is looking at the catalyst of his months long drama spiral. He absently hopes Phil hasn’t noticed how long ago he made it.

“It’s sort of out of order,” Phil says, turning the computer so Dan can see the damn shoes and his damn font choice. As if Dan hadn’t been the one to make it. “First you make an engagement announcement, then you tell me you love me, only to immediately take it back. And then you take months to _act_ like you love me. But you don’t say it any more. I’m not really sure where we are.”

Dan’s silent. Phil doesn’t sound upset, but he’s also not looking at Dan. He’s staring at the computer, not smiling or kissing Dan or telling him how dumb he’s been. Dan worries at a few loose threads in the duvet. He’s not sure what to say, not sure what will make this better or worse.

Finally, he sighs and says, “Louise told me I should tell you months ago.”

Phil laughs, a little bitter. Dan can tell he needs to act delicately, knows this could turn into an argument just as easily as it could turn into a resolution, finally.

“Louise tells you a lot of things,” Phil says quietly. “And you tell Louise a lot of things. And Martyn. And all our friends apparently. You tell things to everyone but me.”

Dan’s hand freeze and he turns to look at Phil, wide eyed. “You heard?”

Phil drops his hands onto the bed. “You’re not very quiet. And I don’t sleep as deeply as you think.”

Dan’s cheeks are burning. “You heard…”

Phil finally turns to look at him. “I’m scared too, Dan. I haven’t been in a relationship with anyone in _ages_ because you’re always there. If this doesn’t work, that’s a whole chunk of my life gone. But I’m willing to try.”

Dan huffs. “Well, why didn’t you tell me.”

Phil stares at him. “You told me you loved me and that you’d get over it.”

Dab cringed. “Yes. That’s a fair point. But you made out with me on the bus! And made us sleep together for _months_. Were you ever going to tell me? You still haven’t told me!”

Silence settles in the wake of Dan’s raised voice. Nerves dance through Dan’s whole body, his abdomen jumps with them and his hands shake. He hadn’t thought they’d get here this way, but this is the question he’s been trying not to ask Phil for years: _do you love me back_?

Phil places Dan’s computer on the bed on his other side, turns his whole body towards Dan, pressing his knees into Dan’s thigh. He takes Dan’s face in his hands, leans forward to press their mouths together.

Dan has been kissing Phil for nearly a decade. He knows Phil’s mouth like he knows his own. He’s been told, in the midst of drunken party games, that they kiss similarly. He holds that knowledge close to his skin, a pleased, dark part of him that knows that they’ve shaped each other in this way.

He knows that Phil always tilts his head to the right. He knows that Phil will never use tongue first, but when Dan licks at his mouth a little, bites his bottom lip, Phil will take it from there. He knows Phil tastes like either coffee or candy, more often than not. He knows that Phil trades between long and short, sharp kisses. He knows that if they keep kissing, Phil will slide his hands into Dan’s hair, will tug him closer and closer until they’re laying down and not talking at all, beyond _yeah_ and _please_.

Dan pulls away and looks into Phil’s face. Kissing is nice. Kissing is _wonderful_. But Dan’s been kissing Phil for years. He knows that kissing isn’t straightforward, doesn’t always mean what he wants it to. Obviously.

But Phil’s grinning at him, a little breathless and Dan feels hope uncurl in his chest, warm and familiar.

Phil smiles wider and says, finally, _finally_ , “Of course I love you, you idiot. I’m sharing the world’s tiniest bed with you. Do you know how many neckaches I could have avoided if I wasn’t all stupid for you? I made out with you on a _bus_. Martyn was on the other side of the door.”

Dan laughs in his face. “That was the worst declaration of love ever.”

Phil rolls his eyes. “Do you want me to tell you I’ve built my whole life with you? I probably can’t live without you? I miss our apartment because it’s _ours_ and I hate your room sometimes, because it’s where you go to get away from me. I’d be happy to get married tomorrow? I want to grow old with you, and make enough memories to fill a TABINOF 2 and 3 and 85.”

Dan shoves him away genlty, groaning and overwhelmed. Phil laughs and pushes back. They wrestle a little, rolling around the bed until they’re both lying perpendicular, Dan’s head resting on Phil’s stomach.

“I had a plan,” Phil says to the ceiling. “I was going to tell you at the end of tour. So we didn’t have to spend too much time together if you’d gotten over it.”

 “I realized in college,” Dan answers causally, like he’s not confessing his biggest secret; offering his heart up to Phil on a platter. “A little bit after we started fucking. I didn’t want to ruin things, so I just ignored it. Or tried to. Obviously, it came back up.”

Phil hums. The noise vibrates through Dan. Dan is warm and in love with someone who loves him back. This is a moment where he can offer his heart up, certain that Phil will take it with care.

Phil says, “I didn’t realize until you told me. That night in my bedroom? But it was like, oh. That’s what this feeling is. I realized it was different than best friends I had before you. When you said you were going to get over it, I thought…but what if I don’t want you to? I just didn’t have the courage to say it out loud.”

Dan reaches to run his fingers down Phil’s leg. Phil doesn’t move, because he’s a freak who isn’t ticklish.

“I’m sorry,” Dan says quietly, staring at the ceiling. “For causing so much trouble. Not telling you. Not listening to Louise.”

Phil drops a hand into his hair, scratching Dan’s scalp lightly. “I forgive you. It’s probably for the best. Gave me time to adjust. Being in love with Dan Howell is a bit different than being Dan Howell’s best friend, and fuck buddy.”

Dan laughs. “Louise is still quite het up about that. She’s very worried for young Dan’s virtue.”

Phil laughs. Dan’s head rises and falls with the movement.

“Did you tell her it was your idea?” Phil asks.

“I’ve tried!” Dan says, sitting up. The piñata got kicked to the end of the bed at some point. It’s looking at him accusingly. He insists, “I have. Oh shit, I need to call Louise.”

Phil’s looking at him, clearly amused. “You do. Tell her I said thank you for all the good advice she gave. Even if you didn’t listen to it.”

Dan rolls his eyes, lays back down next to Phil. Phil’s shirt had ridden up in their wrestling. Dan presses his thumb against Phil’s hip bone, watches the skin around it flush under the pressure. Phil makes a little noise and Dan leans over him, catching his mouth in another kiss.

“That seems like a task for future Dan,” he tells Phil very seriously, their mouths brushing against each other.

Louise gets her call eventually. Dan facetimes her hours later. Phil snores quietly in the background, sated and sleeping, wrapped around Dan.

“Good birthday?” Louise asks as greeting.

The smiles that stretches across Dan’s mouth comes unbidden.

Louise’s eyes widen. “Are you glowing? Is this a post coital glow? Oh Dan, you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

“He loves me, Lou,” Dan tells her, voice low to not wake Phil.

Louise presses her mouth to her hand, laughs a little delighted laugh. “Of _course_ he does! You told him?”

Dan nods, biting his lip against his grin. “I told him and he told me. Then we got distracted, obviously. We’re going to get lunch soon. Phil says I should thank you for all the advice.”

Louise shakes her head. “I’m glad you finally listened. Oh, I’m glad you two figured things out. I didn’t know how much more I could take. Zooey and I were making plans to lock you two in a closet and not let you out until you talked about your feelings.”

Dan nods. “We’re dumb, we’re really dumb about each other. But we figured it out eventually, yeah?”

Louise beams at him.

“I’m going to take a nap,” Dan tells her, glancing back at Phil. “We’ll call you later.”

“Fully clothed please,” Louisie says, then says her goodbyes. Her grin is wide and infectious. Dan’s going to have to get her a ‘ _thanks for all the emotional labor and moral support’_ present when he gets back. He owes her more than a simple thank you.

Dan lays down, tucking himself close to Phil. Phil’s warm and Susan’s hair/fur/bits of paper rustle when he scoots closer to Dan.

Eyes still closed, Phil snuffles and says, “I want pancakes for lunch.”

Dan drops kisses on his shoulder before laying his head down, closing his eyes. “Sure. You can have whatever you want.”

Warmth spreads in Dan’s chest. It’s a familiar feeling, having accompanied his thoughts of Phil for years and years now. He sighs and throws an arm across Phil’s stomach, tucking them together. They’ll sleep for a little while longer, then strike out in Vegas to find pancakes for Phil. After that, they’ll find their crew and their bus and carry on with the rest of their lives, together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap folks! So if you've read this fic and left a kudos or a comment or even just finished it, thanks! This started out as a silly thing I did for self-care, and it's still that, but its awesome to know that it might have made someone else's day a little brighter, too. 
> 
> There's a mild chance that I'll write a little something from Phil's POV and I'm notorious for not being able to let a world go once I've built it but I'm super glad to have seen this fic to its end. Comments are always welcome.
> 
> If you wanna come say hi, or just hang out, you can find me at queerofcups.tumblr.com!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i did a time stamp meme and someone prompted the moment dan decides to start being more affectionate from Phil's perspective.

> _ It feels better. It feels good. Dan lets himself fall into this with Phil and does his best not to look for the bad side, determined to have this for as long as he can without having to question himself, or them. _
> 
>  

Phil doesn’t notice a difference, at first.

They’re in each other’s space all the time, next to each other in their lives and shoved into a tour bus that’s comfortable but still small.

So sure, Dan touches him more. Sure, he stops flinching when anyone catches them looking at each other a little too long. Sure, he gets good morning kisses in the little hallway, inevitably next to someone snoring or just waking up.

But that just feels like Dan being Dan—the way he clings to Phil in moments of uncertainty, turns soft mouthed and doe-eyed and craving familiarity.

And when he gets an inkling, when he notices the absent-minded kisses Dan presses to his shoulders, the way Dan rests a hand on his hips, fingers curling a little…he lets it happen.

He knows that the right thing to do is to call Dan on it. He should force the conversation they’re both dancing around and maybe put a different name to this thing they’ve been doing for so long.

But Dan’s hands are big and warm, and his mouth is inviting and it’s just easier to slip into this version of their friendship. It’s just a hope turned sideways, a loosening of boundaries, a sighed breath after a long, long inhale.

Phil notices, early on, and lets it keep happening, because its just easier this way.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna, come say hi at queerofcups.tumblr.com.
> 
> Thanks for reading & more to come (hopefully) soon!


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